A Load Balancer in cloud computing is a device that acts as a reverse proxy and distributes network or application traffic across a number of servers. Load balancers are used to increase capacity (concurrent users) and reliability of applications.

• Load balancers improve the overall performance of applications by decreasing the burden on servers associated with managing and maintaining application and network sessions.
• They also provide the flexibility to add or subtract servers as demand dictates.

Load Balancers distribute network traffic across multiple servers to ensure no single server bears too much demand. This improves responsiveness and increases availability of applications.

• Load Balancers can be hardware-based or software-based and can be placed in a data center or cloud environment.
• They distribute incoming application or network traffic across multiple targets, such as EC2 instances, containers, and IP addresses, in multiple Availability Zones.

Consider a high-traffic e-commerce website, especially during a sale or a festive season. The website needs to serve thousands of users concurrently and promptly.

• A Load Balancer placed before the website's servers can distribute the load across all servers, ensuring no single server becomes a bottleneck.
• This ensures that the website remains responsive even during peak traffic.